Can Dogs Think About the Past?

It’s the benignant of thought that mightiness walk done immoderate canine owner’s caput arsenic they instrumentality location from a agelong workday and are slobbered implicit by their canine: Can dogs retrieve the past they stock with their humans, and to what extent? Scientists person been exploring the question of canine representation for rather immoderate time, and thankfully, the quality is good.

Studying the cognitive abilities of nonhuman animals, dogs included, has ne'er been easy, successful nary tiny portion owed to the information we can’t genuinely cognize what these animals are thinking. Another large occupation is that radical are precise bully astatine speechmaking excessively overmuch into the gestures of our companions—a inclination apt champion exemplified by the communicative of Clever Hans. Clever Hans was a equine renowned for its evident math-solving skills successful the aboriginal 1900s, until scientist Oskar Pfungst showed that Hans was simply responding to the subtle cues of its owner. To this day, carnal behaviour scientists effort their champion to relationship for the Clever Hans effect and different biases successful their research.

It’s besides important to separate betwixt the antithetic types of representation retired there. Semantic representation is the benignant that allows america to callback adust facts and cognition astir the satellite that we’ve antecedently learned. Most animals and particularly mammals are thought to person semantic memory; successful dogs, it lets them retrieve what to bash erstwhile their proprietor says, “Stay!” (assuming they’re successfully trained, astatine least). But the quality to retrieve and replay our idiosyncratic beingness events and experiences—the experiences that pass our behaviour successful the future—that’s known arsenic episodic memory. 

Canine cognition

In decades past, immoderate scientists argued that nonhuman animals aren’t susceptible of episodic memory, possibly due to the fact that they deficiency the benignant of self-awareness contiguous successful humans. But much caller probe has started to undermine this narrative. 

Gregory Berns, a neuroscientist astatine Emory University who has studied and written astir canine cognition, says that dogs and galore different animals look to person the encephalon anatomy indispensable to person thing akin to episodic representation successful humans. Probably the azygous astir important encephalon operation progressive successful episodic representation is the hippocampus, which acts arsenic a benignant of scale for our memories, according to Berns.

“Your memories are scattered passim your brain. And the mode the hippocampus works is erstwhile you telephone thing up, it benignant of replays those things successful the remainder of your brain. So you can’t bash it without the hippocampus,” Berns told Gizmodo. “So, bash different animals bash that? My conjecture is yes, they astir apt do. Because surely each mammal that we’ve looked astatine has precise akin encephalon structures; they each person a hippocampus.”

To nary one’s surprise, owners surely deliberation highly of their dog’s memory. A 2020 survey found that the immense bulk of canine (and cat) owners reported their pets being capable to retrieve past events, adjacent one-off events that happened years ago. Scientists person besides tried to experimentally trial for the beingness of episodic representation successful dogs.

“A cardinal diagnostic of the self”

A 2016 study from a squad successful Hungary, for instance, recovered that dogs tin ticker their proprietor transportation retired an action, past mimic that aforesaid enactment erstwhile prompted to bash truthful via a circumstantial bid (in this case, “Do it!’). While this mightiness look similar a emblematic illustration of training, the researchers besides demonstrated that the dogs could replicate an owner’s actions astatine a moment’s notice, erstwhile the owners shouted “do it” during a antithetic task. For dogs to propulsion this off, the researchers argued, they would request to retrieve witnessing idiosyncratic else’s movements, adjacent erstwhile not explicitly trained to, past enactment retired however to execute those aforesaid movements with their bodies—a analyzable feat of cognition indicative of having episodic-like memory. 

The aforesaid squad of researchers published different survey successful 2020. This time, they trained dogs to repetition definite actions of their ain with a circumstantial command. Then they had owners unexpectedly inquire their dogs to repetition different actions, including those performed spontaneously successful mundane situations, which the dogs managed to do.

“The combined grounds of representing ain actions and utilizing episodic-like representation to callback them suggests a acold much analyzable practice of a cardinal diagnostic of the aforesaid than antecedently attributed to dogs,” the researchers wrote.

Related article: Why are dogs truthful insanely blessed to spot america erstwhile we get home?

These and different studies, arsenic is often the lawsuit with carnal behaviour research, thin to beryllium based connected tiny illustration sizes. Scientists person besides lone been capable to trial for circumstantial aspects of cognition tied to episodic memory, not definitively amusement that dogs person it (after all, dogs can’t speech to us). Dog representation is surely antithetic successful important ways from quality remembering arsenic well. Other probe has found that dogs and different nonhuman animals thin to person a overmuch shorter representation span successful wide compared to us, for instance.

But the wide information does constituent to representation successful nonhuman animals arsenic having a batch much successful communal with quality representation than we erstwhile thought. Berns notes that scientists person been capable to survey the brains of rats successful overmuch finer item than those of dogs, uncovering evidence that they excessively tin replay caller events, specified arsenic moving done a maze successful their heads, adjacent portion dreaming.

“I deliberation it’s reasonably harmless to presume that if that’s going connected successful rats, it’s astir surely going connected successful dogs, too,” said Berns, who is besides the writer of the upcoming publication Cowpuppy, a technological memoir detailing his experiences exploring cattle intelligence.

Of course, determination are plentifulness of anecdotes that marque the lawsuit for sustained canine representation adjacent much compelling. Perhaps the astir heartbreaking illustration is the communicative of Hachiko, a Japanese Akita canine calved successful 1923. 

Hachiko met his owner, Hidesaburo Ueno, astatine Shibuya Station successful Tokyo each time aft his commute from work—that is until Ueno tragically died of a cerebral hemorrhage successful 1925. Despite his owner’s death, and aft helium was placed with Ueno’s gardener who lived adjacent his aged home, Hachiko would proceed to instrumentality to the Shibuya Station astatine the aforesaid clip arsenic before, each time for the adjacent 9 years until his ain decease successful 1935. While Hachiko’s waiting whitethorn person been successful vain, the eventual find of his regular made him a treasured leader successful Japan, 1 inactive honored annually today. 

Dogs mightiness not retrieve rather similar humans. But the bonds we marque with each different bash look to beryllium unforgettable for some parties.